Face to Face

A remarkable incident occurred recently at a wedding in England. A young man of large wealth and high social position, who had been blinded by an accident when he was ten years old, and who won university honors in spite of his blindness, had courted and won a beautiful bride, although he had never looked upon her face. A little while before his marriage he submitted himself to a course of treatment by experts and the climax came on the day of his wedding. The day came, and the presents, and the guests. There were cabinet ministers and generals and bishops and learned men and a large number of fashionable men and women. William Montagu Dyke, dressed for the altar, his eyes still shrouded in linen, was driven to the church by his father, and the oculist met them in the vestry. The bride, Miss Cave, entered the building on the arm of her white-haired father, the admiral, who was all decked out in the blue and gold lace of the quarterdeck. So moved was she that she could hardly speak. Was her lover at last to see her face—the face that others admired, but which he knew only through his delicate fingertips? As she neared the altar, while the soft strains of the Wedding March from Lohengrin floated through the church, her eyes fell on a strange group. Sir William Hart Dyke stood there with his son. Before the latter was the oculist in the act of cutting away the last bandage. William Montagu Dyke took a step forward, with the spasmodic uncertainty of one who can not believe that he is awake. A beam of rose-colored light from a pane in the chancel window fell across his face, but he did not seem to see it. Did he see anything? Yes! Recovering in an instant his steadiness of mien, and with a dignity and joy never before seen in his face, he went forward to meet his bride. They looked into each other’s eyes, and one would have thought that his eyes would never wander from her face.

“At last!” she said. “At last!” he echoed solemnly, bowing his head.

That was a scene of great dramatic power and no doubt of great joy to both the bridegroom and his bride. It is a suggestion of what will happen in heaven when the Christian, who has been walking through this world of trial by faith, shall awake in the likeness of his Savior, and see Him no longer through a glass darkly, but, as Paul says, “face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12).